User Guide

The first generation hybrid closely resembles a purestrain
Genestealer. From birth - if not before - it has the Genestealer’s
strong psychic ability. The offspring’s psychological influence,
together with the parents innate paternal/ maternal instincts, blinds
the parents
to the child’s true monstrosity. They nurture and cherish
the young hybrid, and will go to great lengths to protect it from harm.
When the first generation hybrid matures, it seeks to infect others,
who in turn produce second generation hybrids. With each passing
generation, the hybrids look more and more like their parent race,
and less and less like Genestealers. By about the fourth generation,
they are all but indistinguishable from purestrain members of the
victim race, to the extent that they ore able to mate in the same
fashion
as uninfected members of their species. Some of their
children will be hybrids, some purestrain members of the victim
race, and others purestrain Genesealers. All of the descendants of a
purestrain Genestealers tend to naturally band together into an
extended ‘family’, usually under the control of the original
Genestealer itself.
Genestealers & Technology
Despite being equipped with hands, purestrain Genestealers are not
tool-users - they build nothing for themselves. Their sophisticated
and subtle brains, which allow them to infiltrate and psychically
dominate other species, are quite incapable of understanding the
complexities of the lever or wheel
- or the spear or gun, for that
matter. When they fight, they fight as animals, using their bare
teeth and claws to tear their opponents to bits.
The hybrid generations are different. While First generation
Genestealers are almost as limited technologically as their
forebears, later generations are capable of understanding and
using technology. A third or fourth generation of Genestealer can
build and operate sophisticated equipment, and it con wield
weapons. But even the later hybrids ore not technological
innovators
- they are limited by the capabilities of the host
parents. If their parents lack sophisticated manipulatory digits, so
will the hybrids; if the victim race never achieved spaceflight, the
hybrids are unlikely to do so.
The Conquest of Planets
Ill-equipped to build and operate their own spacecraft, the
Genestealers travel aimlessly in massive space Hulks, waiting to be
‘discovered’ by humans or aliens. Genestealers are incredibly
hardy and extraordinarily long-lived -they con endure centuries
of isolation in warp space, patiently waiting for a single encounter
with an unwary victim species. Once an individual Genestealer
infects
a victim, they establish a coven on the host’s home world.
There they increase their numbers, taking great pains to avoid
detection. After fourth generation hybrids have matured, they leave
the planet as merchants, diplomats, traders and even soldiers in the
Imperium. Thus they spread their covens to new planets.